ROYAL THOMIAN SPIRIT IN THE
UNBROKEN 125
YEARS
What a marvelous event Sri Lanka has on its
calendar in the Royal-Thomian Match! I have not watched any of
these games for some considerable time having emigrated to
Australia in 1962. I did return for a holiday in 1980.
Unfortunately I was unable to be present at the 1979 Centenary
Match.
I still remember the pageantry, the decorated
tents, the waving flags and baila singing and dancing groups. Also
the overloaded cars with supporters singing and careering along the
Colombo streets. Sometimes these cars would drive through the
grounds of girls' schools with their occupants singing raucously.
This was frowned upon by the school authorities and on one occasion
the Principal of the school had the exit gate closed and as the car
entered the grounds the other gate was locked, trapping the
miscreants.
The match was looked forward to by young and
old, male and female and even those who had no connection with
either school would turn up and enjoy the celebrations.
The Royal-Thomian Encounters have been played
in 1878 and 1879 in which members of the Staff had also
participated. Among them were Mr Ashley Walker of Royal and
Rev.T.F.Falkner of S.Thomas' both Cambridge Blues. There was also Mr
F.Stephens of S.Thomas, a Cambridge man too and an excellent
performer who proved to be a very good coach. 1880 was the first
year in which only the students took part and which is now
officially accepted as the starting point of the Royal-Thomian
Encounters and as such the Score Cards have commenced from 1880.
When I was growing up the Thomians always
seemed to be on the receiving end as far as the result of the match
was concerned. In 1926 we were beaten by Royal convincingly largely
due to Neil Joseph's second successive century in the series. We had
done well in the earlier games but could not match Royal's
performance and lost by an innings and 66 runs. As far as I am aware
Neil Joseph's feat has only been equalled by our Duleep Mendis who
did so several years later and Manoj Mendis more recently,
We had a victory in 1927 by 6 wickets and this
was very gratifying to us youngsters. However 1928 saw us frittering
away our chances of a win after leading in the first innings. This
was chiefly due to our wicket keeper/opening batsman,
D.W.Gunawardena, sustaining an injury to his hand on the morning of
the second day of the match.
In the Jubilee Match of 1929 although our
prospects seemed pretty bright we were soundly beaten by 7 wickets.
Roy Hermon, our Captain and an outstanding cricketer, failed to our
great disappointment. So did our opening batsman H.G.Wickremasinghe,
who had scored two or three centuries earlier in the season. The
Thomians had to go into bat late on the first day and Wickremasinghe
was clean bowled by the Royal speedstar, Hilton Poulier, for one
run. We never recovered from this disaster and even though
A.J.D.N.Selvadurai valiantly tried to hold the side together we lost
by 7 wickets. Selvadurai was given run out when he had scored 55.
The 1930, 1931 and 1932 matches saw us
completely outclassed and made us wonder whether we would ever win a
game. These years saw D.B.Gunasekara and F.C.de Saram make centuries
for Royal, the former establishing a new record of 148. About this
time Royal came up with some outstanding bowlers like N.Kandiah,
D.B.Gunasekara and J.C.W.Rock following on in the tradition of
H.Meedeniya some years earlier. In 1933 a young Thomian side ably
led by L.S.Gauder almost brought off a victory against the odds. We
were well on the way to winning when an over-zealous old Thomian
took it on himself to send a message to our opening batsmen, who had
put on 50 without loss while chasing 90-odd to win and being well
ahead of the clock, to "hit out or get out". This started a collapse
in the batting line-up which was only stayed by the coolness of
Donald Fairweather and the stubbornness of the last man in, Shelton
Anthonisz. The match ended in a draw with honours even.
In 1934 we gave as good as we got and the match
ended without a result, W.A.Wijesinha showing his class as an
all-rounder, scoring 18 and 115 not out and taking a wicket in each
innings. Although he did not take many wickets, in the first innings
especially, he restricted the run flow bowling 24 overs and giving
away only 33 runs.
With 1935 came the end of the long drought for
us and we won by 153 runs thanks to a marvellous performance by
M.O.Gooneratne with both bat and ball. Normally M.O. batted down the
order but for the match against Royal our coach, Mr John Halangoda,
had him batting at No.3. In the first innings his lusty drive failed
him and he was out for nought. But in the second innings he scored a
century in double quick time leaving us enough time to get the
Royalists out before the drawing of stumps. At one stage it looked
as though we were not going to be able to break through the opposing
defences but then M.O. turned in an inspiring bowling effort taking
7 for 34 and we won.
1936 saw two strong batting sides pitted
against each other. Norman Siebel made a record 151 not out and
Bertie Wijesinha 57 to pull us out of the mire we were in at one
stage. Royal declaring at 289 for 8 wickets was ahead by three runs
in the first innings score. The match ended in a draw - our bowling
seemed to lack penetrative power or perhaps the Royalist batting was
too classy with Pat McCarthy scoring 98.
1937 saw us win again under my captaincy with
Bertie Wijesinha notching up 55 in the first innings and having a
match bag of 7 wickets and with my contribution of 62 and 110 not
out in the match. We romped home this time by 3 wickets and this
seemed to make up somewhat for the losses we had experienced in the
late twenties and early thirties.
Several more matches have been played since
then. We have won some, we have lost some and some have been drawn
and we are looking forward to the historic 125th Match of
the series which is due to take place in March 2004. Whatever the
result I know it will be played in the true Royal-Thomian Spirit
that has been maintained over the years.
As the oldest living Thomian Captain of the
Royal-Thomian Cricket Encounters I have penned the lines above in
the evening of my life and in doing so I have endeavoured to recall
some of the cricketing highlights in the years I was at Mount
Lavinia. My only wish is that the Royal-Thomian Match which had been
described as The Great Inter-Collegiate Match in 'Amicus' a Journal
published as far back as 12th March 1909 continues
to be played unbroken for another one hundred and twenty five years
and that the Royal-Thomian Spirit will prevail forever.
ESTO PERPETUA !
WILLIAM JAYETILEKE
